Jonathan Ames on His Bored to Death Nude Scene: ‘I’m So Small’

Spoiler alert: Jonathan Ames, the creator of HBO's Bored to Death, goes full-frontal in the new season's second episode (the show returns this Sunday night at ten). "I think I'm the first creator of a TV show to do full-frontal nudity," he told us at the after-event for last night's Bored premiere party, adding that the nude scene was his idea. "Fortunately it was very meager, because I'm so small." (BTD star Jason Schwartzman, who plays a version of Ames on the show, told us that he, too, would do nudity, but has no current plans to.) So was it, um, liberating, for Ames? "It was more terrifying. I'm not proud of what was onscreen. I'm humiliated by what was onscreen. There was nothing onscreen. It was like full-frontal non-nudity." We suggested that by exposing himself on television, he was showing a confidence that could compensate for humble genitalia. "Um, I don't know about that," he told us.

In other news, Schwartzman is shaving off his porn-star-like mustache in exactly eight days. The facial hair made its debut on a red carpet outside of NYU's Skirball Theatre last night, where the first two episodes of his show's second season were screened. At the after-party at Capitale, the actor informed us he "just decided" to shave the 'stache after receiving mixed reviews: "Reception to the mustache has been really warm and cold. Not really hot. Just, warm, and then some cold. I've been surprised by who doesn't like it. I can't remember offhand, but I've been really surprised. It has eight more days. Exactly."

Schwartzman, who's currently reading the Syd Barrett biography A Very Irregular Head, also informed us that he's writing a new Coconut Records album, with help from Woody Jackson. "Hopefully it'll be good," he said. "But it might be kind of slow, musically. Maybe it'll be really slow. Slower than usual. Painfully slow. But maybe not?" Will it be sadder, then? "No, it's never been happier, actually!"

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